Hawks paying now for paying too much

If you've been watching the overspending of the last couple years, you're not shocked at all that Dustin Byfuglien was among the first Blackhawks dealt this summer.

With the entire league knowing the Hawks' cap predicament, the real shock is that they got in return as much as they did for Byfuglien, Brent Sopel and Ben Eager.

Byfuglien, like so many Hawks, has been overpaid for a couple years, and has underperformed during the regular season.

He's been great at getting in the face of a couple Western Conference goaltenders in the postseason, and this year he was terrific in the playoffs when he wasn't taking stupid penalties.

Nevertheless, the Hawks had to begin the process of getting under the cap and Byfuglien was the classic "sell high'' type player after all the hype he received in Stanley Cup Finals.

The Hawks took advantage of that media attention and took advantage of former Hawks exec Rick Dudley - now the GM in Atlanta - and moved some bodies and dumped some salary.

As for prospect Akim Aliu, he's been a bad pick from the start and the Hawks are lucky to have him out of town and away from their other young players.

For the hopeless romantics unaware of the NHL salary cap, it may not seem like the Hawks got a lot, but anything was better than nothing.

They received cap space, a solid prospect in Jeremy Morin, and valuable draft picks. For the first time in decades, they're beginning to manage their assets like a professional organization, and those picks are essential assets in the NHL today because of the cap.

At the same time, the Hawks will be able to keep their goaltender, their top four defensemen, and their top six forwards, something the Red Wings and the Penguins couldn't say the last two years.

But if you must cry over Byfuglien - and whoever is next to go - remember that as many as 10 Hawks were overpaid by anywhere from a half-million to a million bucks the last couple years.

Add it up and suddenly you have another $5 million to $10 million left and maybe you don't have to trade a Byfuglien at all.

But they are where they are, and even with Cristobal Huet banished to the minors - or leaving for Europe - the Hawks still have work to do to get under the cap for next season.

Depending on how reasonable restricted free agents like Antti Niemi, Niklas Hjalmarsson and Andrew Ladd will be in the coming days, the Hawks are still a few million away from making this work, while needing to add some depth, spare parts and hopefully some genuine toughness for the first time in a long time.

In the meantime, there's another tough decision or two in the offing and no one wants to see it happen, just as no one in the Hawks organization wanted to move Byfuglien.

So soon after the joy of winning it all, the reality of NHL business has set in.

Nevertheless, the Hawks are the defending Stanley Cup champions and they still have all their best players.

In those terms, there's not another team in hockey - not another fan base in the NHL - that can make that claim.

And that's not bad at all.

brozner@dailyherald.com

• Listen to Barry Rozner from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on the Score's "Hit and Run" show at WSCR 670-AM.